By the time of their notorious downfall in the early years of the fourteenth century, the Poor Knights of King Solomon’s Temple, or the Knights Templars, had reached unparalleled heights of power and wealth. They began as a group of knights who had taken monastic vows and assumed the responsibility of protecting Christian Palestine from its Moslem enemies. Before their rapid demise, at the apex of their power, they had expanded into a multinational group controlling massive amounts of wealth, a society of warriors whose sole authority was the Pope.
The Knights were born out of the ashes and aftermath of the First Crusade into Palestine by French and German forces. Incited by Pope Urban II’s call to free the Holy Land from Moslem infidels, princes, peasants, and professional knights streamed out of Europe to take back the birthplace of Christianity. And despite opposition and carnage that was far greater than what they had expected, the Christian forces managed to acquire control of crucial parts of the Holy Land, including the birthplace of their faith, Jerusalem.
However, victory for the Christians did little to ensure the security of the land. The majority of the Crusader soldiers returned home after the war was over, leaving Jerusalem and other conquered territories weak and mainly undefended. And while pilgrims from Europe brought money and volunteered short amounts of their time, there was never quite enough manpower to satisfactorily sustain and protect the new Christian territory (Nicholson 17). The hard work and sacrifice of the Crusaders was in grave danger of falling back into enemy hands.
It was in response to this need that two Crusader knights, André de Montbard and Gondemare, rode to the monastery of the influential Bernard of Clarivaux in northern France. The two men were part of a group of nine, led by Hugh de Payns, also of France, who had decided to dedicate their lives to the protection of the Holy Land. Furthermore, the group had decided to take upon themselves the three vows common to monastic orders: chastity, poverty, and obedience (Robinson 3). While the typical knight of the day was something similar to a hired mercenary, this group of devoted soldiers fought for God alone, depending only upon the gifts of others in order to sustain their efforts. King Baldwin II of Jerusalem had quickly embraced this new Order, giving them a building to the east of the Dome of the Rock, a place thought to have been the site of Solomon’s Temple. Thus, the Knights Templar were originally known as the Poor Knights of King Solomon’s Temple.
However, the knights, small in number and little known, felt less than well-supported. Peter Partner writes:
In a world in which the religious obedience of the monastery was reckoned the surest way to salvation, the obligation to shed blood instead of pray seemed an inferior way to serve God: the poor knights seemed to be accepting the burden of a religious rule of life without obtaining its full benefits. (4)
It was for this reason that Andre and his companion sought the help of the abbot Bernard of Clarivaux.
Bernard soon became a vital ally of the Templars. Stephen Howarth describes him as “one of the most remarkable men in the history of the Temple, a man who would have been extraordinary in any age” (48). At 36, Bernard was one of the most influential spiritual leaders of western Europe, in addition to being the nephew of André de Montbard. The knights sought Bernard’s help in forming a rule, or code of conduct for the Poor Knights. With a defined set of rules and Bernard’s help, the Knights could seek papal recognition as a military order of the church. The support of the Pope would ensure that the knights would receive widespread distinction, and, more importantly, be able to vouch for charitable donations across Europe.
Fortunately for the Knights, Bernard agreed heartily with both the mission and concept of the Order, and did everything he could to ensure the group’s success. He wrote letters urging that the Knights be given money and property, and called the Council of Troyes in 1129, where, after some deliberation, the knights were accepted and sanctioned as the first ever official military order of the Church. Victorious, Hugh de Payns, the first Grand Master of the Templars, toured across Europe, collecting mass donations of money and property and recruiting large numbers of men to join the Order. The Poor Knights of King Solomon’s Temple had overcome the first major hurdle of their existence, and now began to flourish.
Not all of the Church, however, was united in its support of the Templars. The idea of a religious military order, to some, was contradictory and rife with ideological conflict. Knights of that day fought in exchange for land and riches or in family quarrels, very opposite to the Templar vow of communal property and holy servitude. In that day, the concept of chivalry had fallen by the wayside, and knights were a prime embodiment of brash and lustful behavior. In fact, one of the purposes of the First Crusade was to rid Europe of this class of, in the words of Pope Urban II, “unbelieving scoundrels, sacrilegious plunderers, homicides, perjurers, adulterers, whose departure from Europe is certainly a double benefit, seeing that the people in Europe are glad to see the back of them, and the people to whose assistance they are going in the Holy Land are delighted to see them!” (qtd. in Partner 7) Many felt that the evils of knighthood were unredeemable.
Yet the rapid expansion of the Templars suggests that few were daunted by this moral dilemma. In fact, the popularity of the Knights exploded, as poor men, men without families, and those seeking to atone for a life of sin joined the ranks of the order, ceding their personal property to the Templars in the process. The Templars offered an exciting alternative to both dedicated knighthood and monasticism, a combination of “war and worship, the two passions of the age” (Howarth 68). Soon, other military orders, most notably the Hospitallers, sprang up in the image of the Knights Templar. This bold experiment of Christianity would soon prove essential to keeping the Holy Land under European control.
Opinions differ as to whether the Knights Templar was an effective fighting force. Certainly they were up against great opposition, as the Holy Lands were utterly surrounded by Moslem territory. In fact, the majority of the peace between the two factions came about as the result of truces between Islamic and Christian nations. However, the disciplined, organized, and devout Templars had a definite advantage compared to the weak and haphazard forces that fought the many European Crusades. The Templars built and defended a vast network of protective fortresses, including a stronghold in Acre, on the coast, and a fortress at Gaza, which they managed to protect against the forces of the famous Muslim commander Saladin. They managed to save the city of Jerusalem in 1152, by surprising and killing a invading Muslim army of 5,000 (Gervers). Starting with the Second Crusade, many military leaders and crusading armies sought advice from and fought alongside their experienced and disciplined brethren.
Not all of the battles of the Templars were won brilliantly or fought in heroic fashion, however. The Second Crusade met its end after following the Knights’ advice to attack the ancient stronghold of Damascus. The Knights received further criticism for their failure to prevent the recapture of Jerusalem in 1187, and various other territorial losses that slowly shrank Christian territory (Gervers). One of the greatest blunders of Templar history occurred at the Battle of Ascalon, where, for unknown reasons, the Grand Master of the Templars and a small contingent of his men rushed and entered an enemy city prematurely, and without backup. The entire force was eliminated, and their heads were sent as trophies Muslim forces in Cairo (Burman 68). Critics of the Order, such as William of Tyre, claimed that the Knights had hastily entered in an attempt to be the first to plunder the riches of the city (Partner, 25). To this day, the Grand Master’s actions cannot be conclusively explained (Robinson, 96). However, it is known that by the late thirteenth century, the Knights Templar had been effectively removed from the Holy Land by Moslem armies.
The scope of the Knights Templar was not limited to military affairs. At the same time that the ranks of the Order were swelling, the Grand Masters were working to expand the Templars’ freedom of operations in Europe. In 1139, Pope Innocent II declared the bull Omne Datum Optimum, declaring the Templars responsible for “protect[ing] the Catholic Church and, by fighting the enemies of the cross, to rid that part of the Church which is under the tyranny of the pagans from their filth” (Burman 41). Not only did this edict greatly expand the scope and purpose of the Order, but it made the Pope the bishop and head of the Knights Templar. In essence, the Pope freed the Templars from all authority except that of himself, allowing the Templars to ignore the demands of kings, regional Church authorities, and others in positions of political power. The Templars were allowed to retain all booty acquired from defeated enemies, build their own churches, and, perhaps most importantly, they were exempted from the responsibilities of tithing but were given the authority to collect tithes for themselves. With a single and heretofore unprecedented edict, the Pope transformed the Templars from an army of the Latin East to a Church-sanctioned and almost entirely independent entity.
This decree marks the beginning of a major expansion of the political and financial influence of the Templars. Donations of money, land, and castles poured into the Order’s coffers. The Templars established fortresses all across Europe, and had Knights stationed from Britain to Gaza. They participated in battles against the Moors in Spain, as well as being something akin to a personal army of the Pope. They often negotiated the payments of ransoms and the transfer of funds. Many people entrusted their valuables to the Knights Templar for safekeeping, and they were responsible, in some areas, for collecting taxes due to Popes and kings. Edward Burman states, “It seems likely that the Templars were involved in the great improvements in credit and payment techniques that took place in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries” (75). The Templars even found ways around the Catholic Church’s ban against charging interest for money-lending, and many kings and nobles sought access to loans from the great reserves of the Knights Templar. Critics soon began to question the Knights’ monastic vow of poverty. A poet of the Middle Ages wrote:
The Templars are most doughty men
And they certainly know how to look after their own interests;
But they are too fond of pennies. (qtd. in Nicholson “The Knights Templar” 181)
Either out of religious concern or jealousy, many began to question the Templars’ motives as they grew to dominate the scene of western Europe. As it turned out, that criticism may have paved the way for the end of the Order.
By the early fourteenth century, the power of the Knights Templar had begun to wane slightly. The Order had been fully ousted from the Holy Land, its major fortress at Acre utterly destroyed. A rivalry between the Templars and the Hospitallers had arisen, causing strife and damaging both groups’ reputation. Howarth concludes that “Since they were no longer fulfilling their primary function, ‘the defence of the Holy Land,’ it seemed to many people that the Templars had no further reason or right to exist” (251). Many grew suspicious of the powerful and wealthy Order, whose initiation ceremonies were performed in private, and, naturally, whose business was somewhat hidden from much of the outside world (Addison 194).
The beginning of the end of the Templars came about with the rule of France’s King Philip IV. During the early years of the fourteenth century, the monarch had succeeded in gaining nearly complete control over the Pope and the central operations of the Church. He used his new authority to tax the clergy of France and to bend the rules of the Church in his favor. It seems, however, that he desired not only the power of the Church, but the vast assets of the Knights Templar. His plans for the Order came to fruition when, in October 13, 1307, he had all of the Knights Templar in France, including current Grand Master Jacques de Molay, arrested on charges of heresy. Soon afterward, Pope Clement V decreed that all the Templars in Europe be detained as well.
The charges against the Templars ranged from acts of homosexuality to denying the cross and deity of Christ. Philip claimed that the Order’s members worshipped a head-shaped idol known as the Baphomet, and “encouraged brothers to acquire property fraudulently, and to win profit for the order by any means possible” (Nicholson “Saints or Sinners ?”). All across Europe, the Catholic Inquisition tortured Templars in order to extract a confession; those who conceded to the charges lived out the rest of their lives in disgrace, those who denied the accusations were burned at the stake. Despite the scant evidence against them, Templars across Europe died in a frenzy of allegations and suspicion (Addison 205).
Philip was not ultimately successful in his quest for the Knights’ wealth. In a surprising decision, Pope Clement declared that the property of the Templars should go to the Hospitaller military order, and not to the ambitious king. In fact, some may say that the king’s harassment of the Templars resulted in his eventual death, predicted by the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay as he burned at the stake after recanting his confession to the charges. Legend says that, as he died, de Molay asked God to kill Philip within a year, and the treacherous Pope within forty days. Thirty-three days later, Pope Clement V died, and, nine months after, so did King Philip. The mighty sway of the Knights Templar seemed to persist even after their own lives had been taken.
It is here that the accepted historical accounts of the Knights Templar end. Much has been speculated about the later accomplishments of the Knights after the trials of the early 1300’s. Some believe that the Knights may have discovered America earlier than Christopher Columbus (Sinclair 26), other theories speculate that the Knights possessed the Holy Grail and had much to do with the creation of the Shroud of Turin (Knight, Lomas 140). The Knights Templar have also been linked to the deeper levels of Freemasonry. These ideas have yet to reach widespread acceptance, however, due to the lack of documentation left by an Order composed mostly of illiterate soldiers.
The real enigma of the Knights Templar lies in their unique combination of the attributes of piety and a warrior-like spirit, and their rapid rise and fall in a crucial point of the Middle Ages. Seeing how the Knights worked gives us a glimpse into the attitudes and ideas of the day, and also sheds light on a time when religious fervor ruled the land. The Templars are a historical oddity whose story grows ever deeper with each new discovery, and whose full influence on those who preceded them is perhaps yet be fully understood.